It seems perfectly reasonable, having applied my reviewification skills to stage plays and film, that I swivel to the big show that opened two weeks ago and continues its run for the next three—the month of January. No other month opens with a bigger bang, all that hullabaloo and confetti and ball-dropping and noisemakers and, sorry, the worst hats and goofiest glasses ever. So let’s take a closer look at Jan–The Month.
The opening scene is hard to objectively evaluate because this cheeky month encourages the audience to pop a lot of corks right when the curtain rises. There’s a countdown, 5-4-3-2-1, then BAM! Lots of screeching, cue the sad song, and quick, find someone to kiss, even a stranger from Poughkeepsie. But once all that is settled, and after you’ve employed your uncle’s hangover recipe—aspirin and bloody Marys—the four leads take the stage and start to tell the story. Cold, Wind, Rain and Snow are an impressive quartet of performers, inviting comparisons with other fabled foursomes, The Beatles, The Monkees, and Those Apocalypse Dudes.
As a touring show with multiple companies, January lets each lead take front and center depending on local tastes and circumstances. The East Coast crew is currently featuring Snow and, wow, is he ever stealing all the scenes. But let’s look at our cast, our big four, and let’s start with Cold. Yes the calendar says winter, brrr, grab a hoodie bruh, but our chill only scrapes the surface of what the role offers. Forty degrees is just not bringing it, sorry not sorry. A lot of us have the gear to handle more, many having come from places where Winter arrives in the Fall and bullies its way into Spring. So yeah, our Cold is more off Broadway than the Guthrie. At the Guthrie, a renowned theater in Minneapolis, the current temp is 13. Yes, 13!
Wind is really an understudy here, having a few moments on stage where trees get toppled, hats blown away, and other wows, but it’s in the prairie states where she gets to belt her solo and get a rose bouquet afterwards.
As for Rain, alas, it’s hard for this dude to get a break. Back in the day, Rain dominated, soaking everyone and sending some for cover when its waters overflowed. But lately, sorry, Rain is that sophomore who got cast, tries real hard, but leaves everyone in the audience thinking okay, maybe next year they’ll have learned all their lines and remembered their blocking.
Snow, though, is an altogether different theater tragedy. Given the best costume of all, and having slayed it elsewhere, Snow here is at best a backup singer, or the kind of dancer you put in the back row only because the pushy producer, Nature, insists—no snow, no show. If you want to see Snow you gotta drive to another venue or wait until your brother from Rhode Island shares pics from the Providence production.
While terribly uneven, and not what it once was, you gotta give it up for Jan–The Month. There’s a lot of pressure on this time of the year, following the glamor and tinsel glitz of December, knowing the significance of upcoming February, and no longer having the Super Bowl as its big finale. So put on your beanie, ear muffs and boots, order a hot drink and get out and enjoy this show. January runs until the 31st.
Gene Kahane is the founder of the Foodbank Players, a lifelong teacher, and former Poet Laureate for the City of Alameda. Reach him at [email protected]. His writing is collected at AlamedaPost.com/Gene-Kahane.
